Category Archives: Cirque du Soleil

Roy Horn’s 70th celebrated at 1923 and with ‘Michael Jackson One’

Siegfried has said it before, and repeatedly, for a very long time.

“Always, I am waiting for Roy,” he says. “It is the story of my life.”

Siegfried tempered his frustration with a grin. Yes, Roy was behind schedule, it was his 70th birthday and he’d already had a full night before arriving after midnight at a party set to begin two hours earlier. The invitation-only crowd at 1923 Bourbon & Burlesque by Holly Madison finally swarmed the legendary entertainers as they were led into the club.

Balloons loomed throughout the nightspot as Siegfried and Roy were joined by an entourage that included Kenny Ortega (director of Michael Jackson’s thwarted “This is It” stage show and the “High School Musical” series), Bryan Singer (director of “X-Men”); Princess Irene (founder of the Magic Castle illusion enclave in Los Angeles); fellow magician Daren Romeo; and the ever-present Lynette Chappel (the Evil Queen in the duo’s stage show and a loyal confidant, aide and caregiver).

Also in the crowd were a few Las Vegas entertainers: Riviera magician Jan Rouven (soon to be moving out for the big room at Tropicana), singers Ben Stone and Jasmine Trias, and “Absinthe” singer Melody Sweets.

Cirque du Soleil prides itself on making each new show bigger and badder than the last. And for this second combination of the spectacle of
Cirque du Soleil with the musical genius of Michael Jackson, this one is
bad all right (which of course means that it’s really really badass).

The first show, the top-grossing Michael Jackson – The Immortal World
Tour is currently touring Europe. In Las Vegas, four new acts of Michael Jackson ONEwere previewed to the media as a sneak peek of the new King of Pop-driven show at Mandalay Bay.

An incomparable night of music, acrobatics, artistry and sheer creative genius is yours to explore during Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil at Mandalay Bay.

BestofVegas.com has your tickets at discount prices and see what is going to be one of the hottest shows on the Las Vegas Strip. Show starts May 25th.

A rash of horrific accidents in front of audiences during previews has turned an already troubled $60 million Broadway production into a full-scale catastrophe-in-the-making.

One stunt double broke both wrists; another broke a toe; an ensemble member fell more than 20 feet into the orchestra pit when his cable detached from his harness; and a lead actress quit on December 30, a month after enduring a concussion when smacked in the head by equipment.

It’s Broadways most expensive show ever and one that is generating pretty awful buzz.. It had what seemed to be a perfect recips; Julie Taymor of Lion King fame, music by U2’s Bono and The Edge—but it has its share of struggles.

Las Vegas writer Steve Friess says , “A handful of horrible accidents have happened here in Las Vegas. The 2003 tiger attack that maimed illusionist Roy Horn and ended the Siegfried & Roy show is the most famous, but there’s also the 2007 Zumanity case, when performers flying in the air on a long piece of white silk fabric fell and suffered critical injuries. Also, a half-ton prop in O fell on a Bellagio electrician, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Horrible incidents, all. But that’s a handful over the course of a decade spread across thousands of performances involving thousands of performers. Spider-Man has had as many in a month.

Executives at Cirque du Soleil and the equally death-defying Le Rêve won’t let their safety experts talk right now because they don’t want to appear to be insulting or judging the Spider-Man team.

That restraint is as classy as it is frustrating. This is Vegas’ moment to say to New York: We know how to do something you don’t. We make it look easy, but it’s really not. Lord knows, New York elitists have been sneering at the level of talent and quality of musicals on the Strip for decades.”

The MGM Grand was once the biggest hotel in the world and its been home to some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry!

It is currently home to KA, the most technically advanced, biggest and most expensive ($165 MILLION) Cirque Du Soleil show in its history. The show opened in Las Vegas in 2005 and will operate thru 2015. More than 1 million people have seen the extraordinary Ka by Cirque du Soleil as it celebrated its fifth anniversary at MGM Grand this year.

This show is jaw-dropping and eye-popping at times! One cannot deny the grandeur and spectacle that this multi-million dollar extravaganza gives to its audience. Photographs do not even do the show justice.

As soon as you walk into the auditorium, you witness the massiveness of this production. 1900 seats and each seat in the KÀ Theatre has two speakers built into its headrest which allows sound effects to be targeted, manipulated and customized to any of 16 seating zones.

Plus, you see the huge “post and beam” apparatus, that is several stories tall and is magnificently lit and designed, is something to behold. During the pre-show alone, approximately 120 fireballs are discharged. These fireballs measure 30 feet in height and reach temperatures of 1200° Fahrenheit.

KA itself, transcends place and time, with a theatrical landscape, scenic elements and costumes inspired by an array of diverse cultures.

Brought to life by 80 artists from around the world, KA is a gravity-defying production featuring a powerfully emotive soundtrack that enhances the innovative blend of acrobatic feats, Capoeira dance, puppetry, pyrotechnics (119 pyrotechnic devices are fired throughout the show), projections and martial arts. It is an epic saga of Imperial Twins — a boy and a girl — who embark on an adventurous journey to fulfill their destinies.

KA is a BIG show. It’s a fantastic spectacle of artistry and acrobatics. I have to say that the show was nearly excellent. My only complaint is sometimes the storyline becomes a bit drawn out perhaps. But from an artistic standpoint, the color and design of the show was amazing fun and great to see in motion. Yes, videos don’t do the production justice. (But you can get a sneak peak of KA online ). You have to see it live. It is probably one of the most elaborate shows, I have ever seen in my life.

There is no stage, as you would normally think of one. At the heart of the production is state of the art technology, that provides two giant sized platforms which seemingly hover over a fiery void. Platforms that can be either completely vertical or horizontal, that incorporate state of the art laser video projections which interact with the cast providing life like ripples in water or rocks that seem to knock and hit a performer.

Designed by TISFOON , the stage can tilt through 100 degrees and rotate a continuous 360 degrees while artists are performing on it! It is like nothing you have ever seen.

Called The Sand Cliff Deck, it measures 25×50 feet with a six-foot depth and is supported and controlled by an inverted gantry crane. It weighs 150-tons and rises 70-ft. at the rate of 2-ft/second from the depths of a two-story basement. The Sand Cliff Deck is capable of tilting up to 100-degrees at 2-degrees/sec.

The “stage” platform is a sand-covered beach at one point, until it tilts and the sand and performers slide off into the void. At another, it is a vertical wall on which the good guys flee while evil archers pepper them with arrows that thunk into the surface offering handholds and obstacles. At yet another, the stage area becomes a sort of gigantic thicket of grass in which the performers flit among enormous 16 foot bugs and 80 foot long snakes.

When you consider that Cirque du Soleil was founded by two past street performers, it’s quite amazing to see where they have gone as a company. Part mimes, part gymnasts, part magicians and 100% entertainers, the Cirque du Soleil performers, and the spectacles that they put on around the world, are visually stunning.

The Cirque du Soleil tickets for the Las Vegas shows range in price from $60-$150 for adults, and there are discounted Cirque du Soleil tickets for children for KÁ. There are ways to find discount Las Vegas show tickets, generally as part of a Las Vegas vacation package.

You can also buy Cirque du Soleil tickets at the respective casino box office for your show of choice, but if you wait until you get there, the show might already be sold out. PLAN AHEAD!

Regardless of how you get your tickets for a Cirque du Soleil show, or what show you see, you’ll be glad you did!

Franco Dragone worked with Cirque du Soleil for 15 years, putting his personal stamp on the Cirque brand, redefining the notion of circus, founding the artistic soul of the Company, and creating some of the most beloved and highly regarded shows in all of modern theatre. The first of these shows, appropriately enough, was called Le Cirque Reinvente (The Circus Reinvented, 1987), and it was followed by La Magie Continue (1989), Nouvelle Experience (1990), Saltimbanco (1992), Mystère (1993), Alegria (1994), Quidam (1996), ‘O’ (1998), and La Nouba (1999).

In 2000, having created multiple spectacularly successful shows back-to-back, Dragone did what many would have thought the unthinkable; he left Cirque du Soleil. It was time to go on his own, he wanted to grow artistically without any limitations. The result is Le Reve! Imagine if Busby Berkeley were alive today and had an unlimited budget.

The proof that Dragone’s name could stand on it’s own was affirmed when Steve Wynn hand-picked him to create the flagship show for his new resort, Wynn Las Vegas. On the heels of Wynn’s request, Celine Dion approached him to create a permanent show in Las Vegas that fused her world of music with Dragone’s artistic genius of theatre.

Today, the new company, DRAGONE, has launched two of the largest productions in the history of the Las Vegas Strip: Celine Dion’s A New Day, at Caesars Palace, and Le Rêve, at Wynn Las Vegas. Millions more people have now seen Dragone’s visionary productions and experienced a style of theatre that, in an age of blunt messages and blatant marketing, invites the audience to think—and, even more than that, to dream.

BEAUTIFUL AND BREATHTAKING

Wynn Las Vegas and DRAGONE have redefined the traditional theatrical experience with “Le Rêve” (The Dream), the evocative aqua spectacle in-the-round. It is an acrobatic, aquatic show featuring amazing sculptured bodies, thrills, haunting music, a beautiful theater, and spectacular dazzling effects. The show features an ambitious blend of aerial acrobatics, provocative choreography and outrageous antics from the colorful characters. “Le Rêve” is a unique entertainment experience with elaborate effects and powerful performances that conjure an imaginary world, at once intensely beautiful and breathtaking. It is our favorite show in Las Vegas!

The international cast of more than 90 athletes (mostly male,stunningly fit, wearing very little clothing and also wet from head to toe) and entertainers captures the imagination with their strength and agility. From a thrilling high-dive to synchronized swimmers doing the tango in red high heels, “Le Rêve” is captivating from beginning to end. Throughout the show, comedy and dance interweave with sexy athleticism for an awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping experience. It’s like a beautiful vivid technicolor dream…..but your eyes are wide open!

Speaking of the athletes and their scultped bodies, artisitic director Brian Burke says, “It’s a brand new show every performance, so you learn how many times the performers can do those things per week and what the injuries are like. In this show, there are a lot of shoulder things because there’s a lot of hanging. We worked with the music composer Benoit Jutras with the music. I also worked on integrating the ballroom part of the show with Maksim Aleksandrovich from Dancing With The Stars so we did that together. [Production Designer] Michael Crete put a lot of elements like the flowers that you see and the fans. I’m really in charge of directing any new element that comes in with that design. I’ve gotten to work with the world’s best designers, plus working with the videos, the timing of the show, the pacing of the show and the story that we have.

A lot of people in the beginning had been in O, but a lot of people have actually not done a show like this before. We actually find a lot of people who have been to the Olympics, or are pre-Olympics, or didn’t qualify. Most people actually don’t train to do a show like that so we train the performers to do a lot of it here. So they have a talent like ballroom dancing or they are an aerial artist or they’re an acrobat and we train them to do the act and the other disciplines and that’s why it takes a long time.

Obviously, we hire based on the specialties. We have to find people in the States that could be technically qualified and then they are trained for about six months. We have 91 performers in the show but not every tableau has 91 people, so we do a rotation. We have a rule that nobody can do more than four major cues in a show because we found that we were having too many injuries. It also keeps the artists interested in doing the show because every night they come in and do a different show or they can learn a solo. For an artist, it’s a great show to be in because we’re always evolving the show and they never come in and do just one thing.

We have a full-time training staff and a training room and every six months they have to do a strength test and if they don’t qualify they have to be taken out of the show. We’ve created a physical test that they have to be able to do to maintain so that they know they can carry people in the air. A lot of our performers… some of harnessed in and some are just free grip. Strength is key. Before you do anything, you have to climb a rope, you have to do leg bends… there’s a strength regimen that you have to go through to pass the audition first and then we see you dance and move and improv. If you’re not strong enough, you just can’t maintain it.”

Since it’s opening in 2005, the show continues to be tweaked and chaged all the time. The gorgeous theater originally help 2087 seats. It has been redesigned into an intimate showplace and reduced to only 1606, with no seat more than twelve rows from the stage. The theater itself was repainted in warmer tones and given new, roomier seats and more plush surroundings. On top of all this they have created what they call a Champagne Circle where 100 guests sit in custom chairs sipping Perrier Jouet champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, gourmet chocolate truffles, generously-scaled lounge seating, and video monitors which provide behind-the-scenes glimpses preparations in the locker rooms before the show, underwater and up-close imagery of the action during the show. PLUS, VIP package holders will experience the prestige of exclusive opportunities at Wynn Las Vegas with a “Privileged Access” pass for dining and entertainment on the day of the performance.

This V.I.P. treatment is worth the additional bucks. I have seen the show from each of the three sections. There are no bad seats. And each seat gives you different vantage points, so it’s like seeing a new show everytime.

Ticket prices are $99 (Splash Zone- first two rows, I loved it here, you are SO CLOSE to the performers!),
$129 (Premium Seating) and $179 (VIP IndulgencePackage), plus service change and tax.
The show schedule is 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
The show is dark (no performances) on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
For more information visit ENCORE LAS VEGAS or call 702-770-WYNN.
You can also call (702) 770-LGBT (5428) to speak to our dedicated LGBT concierge professionals
to help you buy show tickets and more.

Leave it to Cirque!
After smashing success
with all of their Las Vegas shows,
the magic of Cirque du Soleil
and the genius of the King of Pop
will be combined in the creation,
development, and production of
Michael Jackson projects based
on the music and songs of Michael Jackson.

An arena-touring show is expected to debut in late Fall 2011 and a Las Vegas permanent show is expected to open in late 2012.

Special lifestyle projects, including a nightclub to open with the Las Vegas show, will also be developed.

The first of these projects will be an arena-touring show in which fans will experience the excitement of a Michael Jackson concert, expected to debut in late Fall 2011. That arena show is anticipated to enjoy an extended run in Las Vegas in conjunction with longtime Cirque du Soleil partner MGM MIRAGE.

The Las Vegas permanent show, also in partnership with MGM MIRAGE, is expected to open in late 2012. MGM MIRAGE will announce the location and plans for the permanent theatrical venue at a later date.

Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil, commented, “Michael Jackson is the King of Pop and an all-time phenomenal artist, both timeless and contemporary. As a creative challenge, this project is the ultimate. Through the use of cutting edge technology, we will produce a Cirque du Soleil experience not only worthy of Michael but unlike any other we have created before. We are also so pleased that our longtime partner MGM MIRAGE has once again joined us in presenting another unique creative experience in Las Vegas. ”

Katherine Jackson, mother of Michael Jackson commented. “Our family is thrilled that Cirque du Soleil will pay tribute to my son in such an important way.”

The Estate of Michael Jackson and Cirque du Soleil will each own 50 percent of each Michael Jackson project, sharing equally in the cost of creating, developing, building and producing the projects and in the profits from each project. The Estate of Michael Jackson will also receive royalty payments on various aspects of its intellectual property used in the Michael Jackson projects.

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